VEB 1/72 Beriev Be-6

The Be-6 is a large maritime reconnaissance and bombing flying boat that flew for the first time in 1947. It was an all-metal high-wing monoplane that was powered by two 2000hp Shvetsov ASh-72 radial engines. Until early sixties it was still in service and was relegated to fishing patrol and protection duties with the Soviet Navy. It is the only Russian flying boat of post war design to have attained quantity production.

Be-6 are known to have formed part of the North Fleet since 1953 in both the rescue form that was based at Poty, and others belonging to the 318th Independent ASW Air Regiment at Donuzlav in 1967. Other Be-6s were based at the hydrobase in Taganrog. The Be-6 left a mark in the maritime history of the Soviet Union and was the forerunner to other important projects that were to come out of the Beriev line that followed. The Beriev ventured on patrol, maritime recce, ASW duties till early 70s. Others remained in service on transport or fishery protection duties into the late 70s.

Defensive armament on the Be-6 ASW "MAD" version comprised twin NS-23, 23mm cannon in a remotely controlled dorsal barbette and a single NS-23 cannon installed in the bow turret. The Be-6 carried sophisticated equipment, which included a retractable radome aft of the second step. At a later stage it had a redesigned nose without cannon equipment. The Beriev carried a heavy offensive load comprising a variety of combinations of mines, depth charges and torpedoes on underwing pylons located outward and inward of its engines. Typical bombs carried on underwing pylons as the 250Kg bombs, shown in sketch "C". Other typical loads include AM-1000 mines, depth charges and type 45-36 ABA torpedoes.

The 1:72 scale model of the Be-6 is mainly molded in white plastic. This is of a rather brittle type of plastic as the kit I possessed was fractured from two places in both the fuselage and main wing parts. But this is of no concern as the pieces welded together quite effectively with liquid cement. Some parts such as the propellers, tail barbette, guns, aerial masts are molded in black plastic. These had a crude appearance but with little effort the propellers and the cannon barbette can be salvaged and used on the kit. 

I elected to do the later version of the Be-6, which was mounted with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector "MAD" "stinger" aft of its tail. This meant that the aft part of the rear fuselage had to be modified and rebuilt completely, different from that supplied with the kit. We come back to this at a later stage.  

 The transparencies supplied are in very clear plastic. In all there are a total of 38 components excluding the 2-part stand, which I always discard anyway. There is an assembly drawing which makes construction straight forward if one desires to do the version as issued. However in my opinion the kit was very basic and fell short of my expectations. This turned out into a project that model-wise required a lot of work to turn it into an accurate scale replica of the real flying boat. Certain areas such as the cockpit has no provision of any detail and one should not be deterred from manufacturing a cockpit floor, bulk-head, instrument panel, a couple of seats, control columns, control foot pedals and other de-tails as one desires. The ailerons, which are designed to be moveable, leave an unrealistic gap when raised or lowered so it would be best to fix these in place permanently. At the lower part of the hull there is a rectangular slot into which the stand will fit. This needs to be trimmed and filled.

Over the years I managed to acquire copies of LETECTVI + KOSMONAUTIKA, a Czech magazine that goes back to 1980. This contained an article, which related to updating the Be-6 kit. Pages 290 and 291 produced a side elevation of the fuselage and wing plans and on pages 374 and 375 there is an accurate "stinger" MAD boom drawing. More recently more accurate material in the form of photos started to emerge and reference to these enabled me to produce accurate revised scale drawings of the undercarriage beaching gear. Adding the beaching gear to the kit produces a more impressive and realistic appearance. 

The model of my Be-6 was converted to the later version, which involved modifying the rear end of the fuselage to take the MAD Sonar equipment, which is shown in FIG. 1. part of the rear end of the fuselage and sonar combinations were produced out of yellow pine. This is a soft, easy to work, wood, which does not warp with time and is normally used to make master patterns for production castings. Section templates were made out of cardboard using the plan and side elevation drawing in FIG.1. Producing this component took some time. In the end, after it was carved close to the shape required, it was given two coats of sanding sealer, allowed to dry and sanded down to shape. 

The next step was to place the fuselage halves, part I and 2 together, securing them temporarily with tape from three places. This allowed marking and cutting along line "X-X" shown in FIG.9. This was then cut with a Xacto knife and fine saw. The horizontal part was the tricky bit. This was scored several times over using a sharp modeling knife until it broke away gently from the corresponding half of the fuselage, one at a time. The end bit of the kit fuselage was discarded. A medium file brought down the desired joint preparation so that there is an even and corresponding joint between the fuselage section at "X-X" and the wooden shaped piece at "X-X" that contains the "MAD" boom.  

The kit first appeared on the market over 20 years ago and was then a reasonable product. With the advent of the breakdown of the Iron Curtain certain details on military aircraft started to appear in form of photos, accurate drawings, data, etc, certain areas on the kit such as the portion ahead of the cockpit, aft of the cockpit, wave guard fairing, position of antenna masts, grossly raised panel lines, shape and size of turret/barbette needed to be looked into and each item is rectified with careful reference to the new material. Though small items these appear to be, it is surprising what improvements these will bring to the "end-product" appearance.  

 While the kit is still in pieces, it is important to mark, drill and shape the 15 porthole windows that are scattered throughout the length of both fuselage sides. The location of these is identified with careful reference to the 1:72 scale drawing shown. Some of the existing ones may need to be blanked over with plastic card and replaced with others of the correct shape and at the right place. At this early stage the main plane and tail plane parts are glued together and allowed to set.

Major kit faults corrected

A major fault in the kit lies with the angle of the center line of the engine cowlings with the horizontal. A quick check with FIG.6 or reference to the 1:72 scale plan side elevation will reveal the new angle of elevations. This needs to be so much inclined so that when viewed from the side, the lower part of the cowling front rim is 5mm higher than the uppermost level of the fuselage. This is illustrated clearly in FIG.6.